1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of networking; and more specifically, to Multilink Protocol Quality of Service (QoS).
2. Background
The Multilink Protocol (MP) (described in Request for Comments (RFC) 1990, “The PPP Multilink Protocol (MP)”, August 1996) allows multiple physical links to be aggregated into a single logical link. For example, a subscriber may have multiple Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) links that may be aggregated into a single logical link with the combined bandwidth of all of the multiple DSL links. Packets are fragmented into a plurality of fragments and the fragments are distributively transmitted across the multiple physical links.
A typical network element that provides QoS support for the Multilink Protocol, applies QoS properties for each of the multiple physical links. For example, in a typical network element, a separate group of queues is allocated for each of the multiple physical links associated with a subscriber (the number of queues in the group is dependent on the priority level scheme). In a typical Internet Protocol (IP) QoS priority level scheme, which includes eight priority levels, each physical link associated with the subscriber has 8 queues (one queue for each priority level). Thus, the total number of queues required for QoS support is the number of physical links times the number of queues in the group of queues.